Porsche Panamera News
Sports Cars
2010 Porsche Panamera
By Kim Reynolds
Published: May 01, 2009
During the 1980s, every time Porsche added a new model, its old-time 911 purists protested, and the new cars sank without a bubble. Remember the 914, the 924 and the 928? All jettisoned. The message: "Just keep building the 911, thank you." And for quite a while, Porsche reluctantly obeyed.
That's until the Boxster appeared. With it, Porsche found a breakout script, and soon came the Cayenne, an SUV that sold like crazy. Then appeared the very popular Boxster-based Cayman. And now in October, we’ll see a four-door, four-seat Porsche sedan called the Panamera - the carmaker's fifth distinct model. That matches Acura's model count and eclipses the likes of Cadillac, Buick, Saturn and Scion.
What's a Panamera? Porsche describes it as a four-door sports car, and after riding in it, that's a claim I’m reluctant to refute. This is a big automobile with plenty of room inside (even rear headroom), but it’s also extraordinarily low and wide. It’s almost reptile-like in its squat stance and snake-like in its elongated profile. Some observers have become quite concerned after studying Panamera spy photos, fearful that its proportions are a little too odd. Well, they are odd, but also striking: The Panamera has a dramatic presence it might not otherwise posses were it conventionally shaped. Watching its catfish nose grow in your rearview mirror, its exaggerated length pass, and its hump-shaped hatchback rump accelerate away from you is more than enough to rotate your head. There are lots of pretty, predictable-looking cars on the road right now. The Panamera, though, will be an automotive poke in the eye, impossible to ignore.
Beneath the long nose and characteristic ovoid-headlight cluster resides a 4.8-liter V8 in either normally aspirated form (producing 400 horsepower) or a turbocharged version (churning out 500 horsepower). The Panamera is propelled by Cayenne's power plant, though a great many of the V8’s details have been nuanced to improve efficiency.
What’s unlike the Cayenne, however, is the Panamera engine’s availability as part of a rear-wheel configuration (the Panamera S), in addition to an all-wheel-drive version (employed by the 4S and Turbo editions). An even greater differentiator is the transmission that’s common to all: Panamera’s 7-speed dual-clutch design (that’s, a manual without a clutch pedal that shifts really, really fast), which Porsche calls the PDK. Like Porsche’s other PDK applications, it can be shifted by either the steering wheel’s toggle buttons or left to its own devices in automatic mode. And here’s an irony: Despite the Turbo’s top speed of 188 mph (175 for the S and 4S), when you come to a halt, the engine shuts off to save fuel. Releasing the brake instantly restarts the engine.
Another epicenter of technical sophistication is the Panamera’s suspension, which, in the Turbo’s instance, consists of a triumvirate of remarkable components. Front and center are dual-stage air springs that alternately allow the Panamera to ride like a supple Mercedes or stiffen and lower by 1 inch, producing genuine Porsche-like agility. Complementing them are adjustable shock absorbers and actively adjustable anti-roll bars that can nearly cancel out body roll.
The Panamera’s prices are expected to range from $89,800 for the S, $93,800 for the 4S and on up to $132,600 for the world-conquering Turbo. Judging from its interior’s exquisite leather, its delightfully angular aluminum air vents, its meticulously crafted instrument panel, its mostly aluminum bodywork and its elaborate three-piece rear wing that deploys at 127 mph, these will be princely sums well spent.
Who should drive this car: Cayenne drivers who've gotten squeamish being seen in an oh-so-2001 SUV – plus anybody who simply can’t believe a four-door sedan could ever perform like a Porsche.
How it drives: We’ll know for sure in a few months, but judging from the backseat, what we have here is the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde automobile – posh in polite company, a corner-killer on desolate back roads.
MPG (combined city and highway, European cycle): 21.8 (S and 4S); 19.3 (Turbo)
Cost (base price): $89,800 (S), $93,800 (4S), $132,600 (Turbo); all require an estimated $795 destination charge.
Comparable: Maserati Quattroporte, Mercedes-Benz AMG S63, Audi S8
